Some have made claims that the possibilities for the application of raw potentia are endless. This is demonstrably untrue. There are clear limitations regarding what the potentia may be assigned to.

  There are myriad factors, but in the end every being has different limitations regarding what they can and cannot do. Those limits are intrinsically tied to their insights and conceptual links. A being with the insight ‘fire burns hottest when condensed’ may be able to assign potentia to their flame resistance, or the rate at which they’re able to feed mana into fire-based spells. A being with the insight ‘A dark night is the fear of the unknown’ on the other hand, certainly will not be able to invest their potentia in either.

  

  Madrick

  Pashaka, Koozlen, Ozoros Cluster

  

  Eyes distant, Madrick observed his protege as she stepped toward her first rift. He could still remember his own first rift experience, the life and death struggle, the mystery. Unfortunate, then, that she’d done such an admirable job with party recruitment and research.

  Not having the time, or inclination, to watch every second of every day of his apprentice’s life, Madrick wasn’t entirely certain how Willow had ended up finding two prior legends and convincing them to work with her. Perhaps she’d let slip that her unique ability and insights hadn’t been stolen away upon death as they should have been. That would likely be enough to pique their interest.

  Blinking, Madrick sent a command to the UICI playback module. The video rewound slowly, until he sent another command which froze it. The rift had been orange and red, as he thought. Resuming playback, he watched carefully this time as Willow’s foot brushed the surface of the rift. In the split second between touching the rift and entering it, Madrick paused the frame. A wide smile grew on his face. Its surface had changed color entirely.

  Unless the UICI’s recording module was malfunctioning, it had turned from a stable swirl of orange and red to a mix of deep blues. This was far from unheard of, of course. Rifts ascended all the time. What was unheard of, however, was a rift ascending unexpectedly. The owning faction should have known the ascension was coming and should have stalled all delves until a team of legends could be sent through to inspect it. ‘Safety standards’ they called it. Anyone who’d ever been part of one of the legend inspection teams knew the truth: the first delve after an ascension always gave rewards in excess of four to five times the quality of a standard run.

  Chuckling, Madrick closed the replay and silently wished Willow luck. It was likely her and her party would end up respawning again shortly. All of their research would be in vain. Perfect.

  UICI dismissed, his eyes fell on the sparkling plane of nearly black blue streaked with random violet lines. It was time to continue his own training. Glancing around the surrounding area one final time, Madrick confirmed his preparations would be sufficient. Given this was a new rift, without infrastructure setup to monetize it yet, he had to take precautions. A dozen thin enchanted rods created a double pointed star with the rift at its center.

  The device claimed to contain all abnormal mana and potentia signatures, which in theory should make it difficult for anyone else to stumble upon the rift before he finished it. Beyond that, three small disks were tied around each post as well, adding their own protections. One would alert him if anyone passed into the perimeter or disturbed the array’s positioning after he entered the rift. Another would create a solid shield of absolute denial mana around him the instant he exited. The final disk generated an illusion which masked the presence of the rift from all standard primary senses. Sight, hearing, smell, spiritual resonance, aura trails, and so on. It boasted that it could divert over two dozen individual senses.

  Feeling prepared, he strode into the rift he had dubbed Pashaka. Just as the tip of his finger touched the surface of the plane of purple streaked darkness, the rift’s color shifted to a vibrant green.

  Both Willow and I, huh? What a strange coincidence. His thoughts were amused, not worried. After all, what did the god of True Domination have to fear from plotters and dissidents?

  

  Naomi

  Crew Quarters, Central Bridge, Wesnmen’s Coallition Trading Barge

  

  The orc woman across the table was significantly smaller than Jemer. Even so, she towered over Naomi and the other occupants of the small folding square of plastic. When the green skinned orc had pulled out the cheaply made plastic card table, stained with coffee rings and beer spills, Jonah had laughed uproariously until Koog had demanded he ‘fuck off’. He’d taken her demand to heart, leaving, while still laughing in spurts.

  While Naomi could understand the incredulity of seeing such an iconic piece of cheap furniture in this setting, she thought his reaction was a bit much. The stress was clearly beginning to ware on him. A week had passed since the hell spawn orcs had wrested control of the ship from the goblins. The entire time, they had been working to carefully recruit likely candidates to their cause.

  Chaven had come up with the overall scheme. Unfortunately, he was just about the worst person in the world when it came to subtlety and subterfuge. His entire path was structured around contracts, forthright documents which both parties were supposed to read and understand. Finding loopholes, arguing semantics, detecting failures to operate within the contract, all of these were Chaven’s forte. Spinning stories, garnering sympathy, pushing and pulling buttons, or in other words all the skills they currently needed: were entirely beyond the avron enforcer.

  Had someone asked Naomi back on Earth whether she could manipulate people, she probably would have asked what the point was and rolled over in her bed to face the familiar white-gone-beige wall. Now, she sat with an orc, an elf, and a hob goblin. Unfortunately working with the goblins directly would be too obvious, so they were what Jonah called an ‘untapped resource’ which they would ‘call on when needed.’ Being able to call on them, of course, presumed they wanted to return to their prior status quo.

  “Check.” Koog, the hobgoblin stated as he tossed several chips into the center of the rickety table. The heavy pieces of square metal moving were enough to make the unstable surface shake. They all ignored the by now familiar threat to collapse.

  Tossing in a pair of metal scraps, Naomi called out, “Call”. The pink-skinned elf lady to her left Fidgeted slightly with the cards in her hand, a habit rather than a tell. Putting her cards face down, she reached out to deal the river. Three cards face-up.

  Not very interested in the game itself, Naomi’s attention was mostly taken up by her primary task here. She was carefully maneuvering the pinprick of mana which she’d condensed over the course of the first two hands toward the hobgoblin. He would be the key to getting this group onboard.

  The minuscule orb floated along the bottom of the table, hidden from sight. Naomi found it difficult to control the mana when she couldn’t see it. There was very little feedback from the mana itself, so the exercise was at least partially guesswork. It helped that Jonah had insisted she practice dozens of times getting a similar orb to him across a room through various obstacles without him spotting it. Even so, it was still hard.

  “Check.”

  Believing the orb should have arrived near the edge of the table, she lowered it toward the ground until she felt the barest sensation of resistance, which indicated she’d hit the magically infused metal floor. She could send her mana through it, she’d verified, but in this case that wasn’t the goal.

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  “I’ll bet.”

  Automatically, Naomi shook her head and made a cutting motion, “Fold.”

  Pushing the orb further toward Koog, Naomi felt a much stronger sensation of resistance and knew she’d reached his foot. The hob goblin wore enchanted boots, which allowed him to walk along any surface regardless of where gravity pulled. It was critical for engineers and maintenance workers alike to be able to reach any odd nook or cranny on the ship as needed. Being one of the aforementioned engineers, Koog’s were high quality and well maintained.

  “Call.”

  While Naomi thought she could probably force her mana into the boots, she didn’t need to. Using the resistance as a guide, she slowly slid the orb up until she reached the edge of the hob goblin’s footwear. Her mana effortlessly slid through the barely-noticeable barrier around Koog’s rough skin. Whatever socks or pants may have been in the way clearly didn’t have any mana imbued into them, as Naomi didn’t feel even a hint of extra resistance beyond the negligible natural resistance all people seemed to have.

  “Fold.”

  Once her orb was within, she commanded it to spread throughout the body, without leaving it. Letting the mana follow her order, Naomi paid a little more attention to the game. The elf ended up winning the hand and pulled the colored bits of scrap metal toward herself. They were just using pieces of scrap metal which the group had found or had left over from cuts while performing maintenance. Each had a little dot of color, some kind of cheap paint, to distinguish denomination. They hadn’t even bothered cutting the scraps into consistent shapes or take off their edges. If Naomi’s body hadn’t been reinforced with the xp from killing so many orcs, she’d probably have cut herself several times already.

  The next hand began and Naomi paid just as little attention. Given her generally passive expression, no one seemed to notice. She had played with this group twice besides today, so they were mostly used to her oddities.

  “D-Did you hear about Jemer’s statement?” The elf asked, her voice trembling as always.

  Snorting, the orc slapped her hand to the ground and declared herself out of the round before answering, “She’s just lyin’. Orc warlords are like that. All promises, no follow through.”

  “I thought…” Koog hawked and coughed, clearing the seemingly ever-present phlegm from his lungs, “…that orcs were honrable.”

  The orc in the room, Naomi thought her name was something like Hasvalas, laughed uproariously without mirth. “Species don’t matter Koog, once someone gets a taste of power they wanna keep it. What’s the best way to keep your power? Don’t give power away to others!”

  The announcement they were discussing was the very obvious bribe which Jemer had delivered over the system-comm the evening before. Supposedly, she would personally fund a rift delve suitable for anyone between ranks ten and twenty, for anyone who terminated their contracts with the original captain of the ship through a specific exit condition.

  Notably, that exit condition had been noted to the new ship’s captain by Chaven. It had been Naomi’s idea. An easy way to weed out anyone who was happy to work with the new management if it looked like they’d be rewarded. Hopefully, it would help them avoid revealing their plan to someone who would sell them out in hopes of wealth or status.

  Of course, Jemer was unaware that Naomi had asked Chaven to look into a way to legally get out of the contracts. It would be too suspicious. The orc woman kept Naomi and Jonah both on a short leash. Anytime they went somewhere the surveillance system didn’t extend, they quickly found themselves “accompanied” by one of the many orcish warriors available to Jemer’s beck and call. Because they had to be careful, Chaven also hadn’t been able to suggest what could be done with the information about the contract’s escape clause. They just had to hope the shaman was canny enough to take advantage of the opportunity. She had been. Unfortunately, she’d chosen a very tempting offer.

  Jonah had been approached by a couple of their co-conspirators who, apologizing, backed out as they wanted to take the offer. Their new contract with Jemer surely wouldn’t allow them to flat-out betray her, so they needed to clean their slates. They did promise not to inform on them. The contract presented by the orcish leader didn’t say anything about being unable to lie to their leader, or being compelled to bring forth information about plots. All Jonah had been able to do was smile and thank them for acting honorably and letting them know.

  “Orcs aren’t honorable as a rule. Just like not all hob goblins are nasty phlegm filled puss-sacks. Despite present company seeming to reinforce the stereotype.” Hasvalas joked. Koog flashed her a rude hand sign but didn’t interrupt. “It’s the clans they came from in the tutorial, what group they’ve joined since arriving, and how long they’ve been out of the tutorial you gotta look at.”

  Another round of calling, raising, and folding.

  “Take me, for example, I came from one of the Shattertusk clans from the Ashwinds tutorial. We’re known to be brutal enemies but honorable allies. I joined up with the Autronima faction when I got here and…”

  She glared at the elf to her right, who was snickering. “What? Got a problem, twiggy?”

  “N-no! It’s just f-funny, y-you almost s-sound like you t-think you got a c-choice in wh-who you joined.” She giggled again.

  Deflating somewhat, Hasvalas sighed, “True. I just signed what was put in front of me like most others. I was way too overwhelmed. Anyway, the point is the Autronima faction isn’t really so bad. Their leaders are trash tier shit-holes, of course, but they all are, right? - Call - The rank and file aren’t so bad though. We mostly do our best to be nice enough. Give planets the faction buy’s a chance to clear out, that kind of thing. We actually own the planet we picked up miss blank-face and her buddy up from.” She jutted her chin across the table.

  “Not sure why the uppers haven’t told us to clear out the kobolds, they usually make all natives or ‘illegitimate settlers’ leave when they buy a planet.”

  Naomi’s mana was now distributed throughout Koog enough to begin working. She very carefully controlled her intention for the mana. She would take all of the emotions the man felt into herself, let it pass through her soul, and exit back out seamlessly. Another thing she’d practiced with Jonah. He’d hated it for the first few hours, until she got it down properly.

  She began to feel his emotions for a brief moment as they passed through her nexus. Given her own general lack, they felt so strong. She had to fight to keep her face neutral and passive. She’d immediately burst into tears when she tested with Jonah.

  Remembering something potentially relevant, which also gave her a natural way back into the conversation, Naomi mentioned, “The kobold said there were three different groups who all claimed ownership, as well as the kobolds having already claimed it themselves.”

  “Oho! Now that might explain it!” Koog slapped the table excitedly, causing it to tremble precariously, cards thrown about. “Ah, sorry. But I wanna hear who is trying to stick it in the Autronima’s backside!” The hob goblin was more than a little excited to know his own faction was being contested. The emotions rolling through him were powerful: excitement, giddiness, smug satisfaction, and beneath it all a seething resentment. Clearly, he didn’t think quite so well of the faction as Hasvalas.

  “If I remember, the three were: The Luminous Home, Autronima, and the Insight Entreaty guild hall.”

  Surprise, more excitement, curiosity, more anger.

  “Well I’ll be… The Luminous Home is sticking their over-righteous noses in huh, and the Insight Entreaty guild? Wonder what’s down there that’s got everyone so in a tizzy. Prism, you know anything?” His eyes pierced Naomi, as she felt the suspicion suddenly spiking through him.

  Tapping her hand to check the latest round, Naomi shrugged, “Well I know there are special trees on the surface which were created by a fae named Nuu. The trees had these weird gem stone things instead of roots, which the kobolds called ‘sun child stones’. They glowed with a light that didn’t bounce correctly, it kind of coated everything more like a liquid than a beam. They’re very strange and interesting.” After a moment’s thought, she added, “I think those sun child stones had something to do with the jimble-grimbs being able to combine and evolve into a mountain sized monster, too.”

  The conversation followed a line of curiosity and questioning for a while, before everyone accepted that Naomi truly didn’t know much. As the topic wound down, Naomi asked with as much curiously in her voice as she could inject, “Would you rather work for the orcs instead of the Autronima faction?”

  Koog’s mix of emotions were complicated. The strongest one was a sense of helplessness. The elf was the first to answer, “I-i wouldn’t w-want to. M-most orcs t-think I’m w-weak beac-because I stutter.” Despite the trouble she had speaking, and some other nervous habits, from what Naomi had seen the lady wasn’t timid or weak. Naomi honestly wasn’t sure if she’d ever been introduced to the elf, if so she didn’t remember her name. The other two always called her, ‘twiggy’. Which might have seemed insulting, but she didn’t seem to mind.

  With a shake of her head, Hasvalas agreed, “The Orcish Federation Faction is full of bigots and idiots. The O.F.F.’s official mission statement is, ‘To Spread the Glory of Orc-Kind’. That glory is pretty much exclusive to spreading the more violent cultural norms and prejudices. I’m honestly a little surprised that, if Jemer really is part of the O.F.F., she hasn’t had her warriors round up all the goblins and make them do something humiliating. There’s a lot of age-old hatred between goblins and orcs, a racial thing which a lot of tutorials seem to include for some reason. My own didn’t have goblins at all, so, I don’t get it. But a lot of orcs just hate goblins and vice-versa. It took a while to convince the crew here that I wasn’t some kind of enemy, honestly. And they’re way more open minded than the O.F.F. is.”

  Everyone turned to look at Koog, who just shook his head before clearing his throat as usual. “Nah, no reason to jump ship. ’Specially if my crew’s not gonna hop with me.”

  Knowing smirks passed between the elf and orc. Feeling the sense of community and comfort Koog got seeing the expressions, Naomi almost wanted to just let everyone enjoy the peace. Unfortunately, she had a mission to accomplish. She braced herself, ready to react. She would have to be quick, and precise.

  “What if there was a third option?”

  There it was, a huge spike of suspicion. She took most of it, allowing only a whisper of the original emotion to slip through and be processed by Koog. He narrowed his eyes, “Hmm, sounds like the beginning of a sale’s pitch to me.”

  Doing her best to imitate one of Willow’s wide smiles, she dropped it as she felt Koog’s alarm pass through her. Taking a deep breath, she began her carefully planned explanation. She made sure to include all three members of the group in the discussion, never barring anyone from the conversation, but also ensured Koog was her primary focus. His concerns were paramount, as the others would follow him. Despite what they’d both said, Naomi believed that if he decided to join the O.F.F., they would probably follow him.

  The next half hour was exhausting. An exercise in carefully filtering our dangerous emotions without drawing suspicion. Allowing the right amount of some emotions to flow, cutting out others entirely. All while speaking softly but confidently, with conviction. Jonah had promised the audio devices in this area of the ship would be turned off today, so hopefully Jemer wouldn’t learn about their plan too soon.

  Naomi knew she would at some point, she was simply too smart and too suspicious, but hopefully by then it would be too late.